In this course, you will be getting some experience installing and using FOSS and creating web maps with it. While doing this, you will use open specifications for GIS data and web services. You'll also learn how to use open data and contribute to OpenStreetMap.
Each week, you'll complete a walkthrough explaining some FOSS tool. Following the walkthrough, I will often ask you to apply what you've learned to some of your own datasets you've found or collected. This will allow you to build up a comprehensive project as the course progresses. The goal is to produce something you can host on your personal webspace and reference in a professional portfolio.
The functionality of our web maps will be relatively simple, limited to layer display and point-and-click queries. However, the frameworks that we'll use are broadly extensible depending on how much programming you're willing and able to do.
Along the way, you'll pick up some skills with manipulating data (projecting, clipping, and so forth) with FOSS, which will hopefully prove handy throughout your GIS career. Many of these tools can be scripted with Python and other languages that you may have learned already in other GIS coursework.